Vedanta - Beyond Pain & Pleasure
S H VENKATRAMANI
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Indic tradition exhorts us to cultivate a temperament of equanimity , a state of equipoise in which one is unmoved, equally , by pleasure and by pain.We are told that we should not be driven to a state of delirious ecstasy by a pleasurable experience; neither should we sink into the slough of despondency after experiencing pain.He who can regard both pleasure and pain alike is described by the Bhagwad Gita as a stithaprajnya. Can we cultivate this state of equanimity by using our faculties of creativity and imagination to mentally transport ourselves away from the impact of an immediate experience?
If the creative mind is capable of doing so, the same mind is also equally capable of taking us closer to the experience! If we forcibly silence our agitated mind and anxious heart, that would only create a dichotomy between what one naturally feels like being and doing, and what one thinks one should be and do. How does one cultivate that detached perspective? How does one attain a state of equanimity?
To do that would mean to transcend the dimension of the mind itself, to transcend all opposites. To achieve the equanimity of the stithaprajnya, one would have to first transcend the dichotomies of the mindscape, the stimuli towards exultation or lamentation that the world offers in plenty .
This transcendence also involves the renunciation of every device that promotes unhealthy differences, dispute and conflict. It is the direct perception of the indivisible unity of all that is around and within one, according to Advaita, which gives one equanimity .
If the creative mind is capable of doing so, the same mind is also equally capable of taking us closer to the experience! If we forcibly silence our agitated mind and anxious heart, that would only create a dichotomy between what one naturally feels like being and doing, and what one thinks one should be and do. How does one cultivate that detached perspective? How does one attain a state of equanimity?
To do that would mean to transcend the dimension of the mind itself, to transcend all opposites. To achieve the equanimity of the stithaprajnya, one would have to first transcend the dichotomies of the mindscape, the stimuli towards exultation or lamentation that the world offers in plenty .
This transcendence also involves the renunciation of every device that promotes unhealthy differences, dispute and conflict. It is the direct perception of the indivisible unity of all that is around and within one, according to Advaita, which gives one equanimity .
